Domino's CEO David Brandon returns to his alma materDomino's Pizza CEO David Brandon has had a long and close relationship with the University of Michigan. See some key milestones and video clips of Brandon discussing the importance and influence of education and corporate management.

Domino's Pizza CEO David Brandon at a practice field at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He'll become the school's athletic director in March.

COMPARING DOMINO'S, U. OF M.

Domino's Pizza

University of Michigan

Established

1960

1817

Employees

170,000

275*

Locations

8,800 stores

3 campuses

Financial

$1.425 billion revenue

$88 million budget*

* Athletic DepartmentSources: Domino's, University of Michigan

By Kevin McCoy, USA TODAY

ANN ARBOR, Mich.  David Brandon may be the nation's only CEO who says leaving a job with total annual compensation of $2.6 million for one that pays up to $825,000 is a promotion.

But Brandon says he barely thought twice before deciding to step down from Domino's Pizza (DPZ) after 11 years running the franchise delivery giant and sign a five-year contract as athletic director for his alma mater, the University of Michigan.

In part, that's because the new job he starts in March will take him full circle — returning him to the place where he played college football, served on the Board of Regents and that he relied on to save the lives of his twin sons and to treat him for cancer.

"This feels to me like just such an appropriate next step. It's leadership, but a different kind of leadership," said Brandon, 57, discussing the impending move during an interview at Domino's headquarters, a few miles from the university's main campus. "This has provided me with an opportunity to connect with a place that has been incredibly important to my life."

Starting with the stepping stones to becoming a CEO.

Brandon came to the University of Michigan's main campus in Ann Arbor on a football scholarship in 1970 after winning varsity letters in football, basketball and baseball at South Lyon High School. He arrived as Glenn "Bo" Schembechler began a career that would make him the top winning coach in school history.

But Brandon's on-field time would barely rate an asterisk in Schembechler's career. Although he got three Big Ten Conference championship rings, the former high school star quarterback says he played only a few minutes of mop-up time as a 6-foot-3, 230-pound defensive end. Still, the experience proved valuable.

"It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was the hot-shot kid coming out of high school with nine varsity letters, and I learned that didn't count for very much," says Brandon.

"I left the program feeling a lot like a failure," says Brandon, who had planned to put his degree in speech communication to use by becoming a teacher and coach.

But while doing student-teaching, Brandon heard from a Procter & Gamble recruiter referred by his football coach. Although he hadn't starred as a Wolverine gridder, Brandon says he decided "I could sure as hell try to be an All-American in business," and return to teaching later.

The referral and career switch didn't surprise Jim Hackett, a football teammate and friend who's now CEO of Steelcase, a top office furniture company. Although Brandon was never a football starter, Hackett says he remained deeply involved by mentoring freshmen teammates and "had that swagger from knowing he was a contributor."

"Dave had a confidence that made him a natural leader. He was able to be out front early in his career when others were figuring out how to perform in business," Hackett says.

Starting out

Brandon spent five years at P&G, earning promotions as he and wife Jan began their family of three boys and a girl.

College ties also led to Brandon's next corporate step. Larry Johnson, a Michigan teammate who had married into the family that owned Valassis Communications, a media and marketing services firm that supplies newspaper inserts and product-coupon booklets, touted him as a management candidate. Brandon spent 20 years at the Michigan firm, ultimately becoming CEO. He led the process in which Kerry Packer, whose Australia-based Consolidated Press Holdings bought Valassis in 1986, took the company public in 1992.

Brandon stayed on afterward as Valassis grew. At the same time, he strengthened his University of Michigan ties by winning a 1998 statewide election for a Board of Regents seat that gave him a role helping run a leading center of higher learning.

As he succeeded in the business world, Brandon also followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, who had been local government officials back in South Lyon. He served as a Michigan Republican Party finance chairman during the 1990s and at various times weighed — and at least for now, discarded — potential GOP bids for governor or the U.S. Senate.

"It was kind of bred into me that this is something you do, to give something back to your community," says Brandon.

The increasing prominence brought Brandon to the attention of Bain Capital, the private-equity firm that acquired a majority stake in Domino's in 1998. A Bain headhunter approached even before the deal closed, says Brandon, and he became CEO in 1999.

He succeeded founder Tom Monaghan, who over 40 years had grown one Ypsilanti, Mich., pizzeria originally called DomiNick's into an international brand.

Brandon had no experience in the pizza business, knew nothing about franchise operations and lacked formal business-school training. But he had long experience as a top manager, using lessons he says he "stole" from a roster of great bosses and business associates.

When he arrived at Domino's low-rise, Frank Lloyd Wright-style headquarters, Brandon says he found a conservative firm that for all its success suffered from high turnover, lack of college recruiting or employee training, and absence of any bonus or equity system for employees.

His predecessor had worked in an inconspicuous office, says Brandon, adding, "Mr. Monaghan was an introvert. I'm not."

Brandon located a sprawling new CEO office suite just above the main headquarters entrance. It was just one of many changes in Domino's corporate culture. Actions he took included:

•Relaxing the long-standing dress code of white shirts and ties for men, skirts for women.

•Starting a recruiting program.

•Creating a system to reward workers based on the company's market success.

•Building a working replica of a Domino's store at the heart of the company's headquarters.

•Launching a classroom and store training program for new and veteran workers.

Brandon taught some classes at the pizza university. Graduates get a gold-colored "spoodle," a combination spoon/ladle used to supply and spread just the right amount of tomato sauce on the company's signature pizzas.

A recent visit confirmed that more than a few headquarters cubicles display such spoodles.

Team builder

What's Brandon's management style? "I'm not in the old-school model of the guy who's always in charge," he says. "My style is more interactive, more consensus building."

That team approach has helped make Domino's "more consistent in performance" while competing in one of the restaurant industry's most competitive categories, says Colin Guheen, a Cowen and Co. analyst who tracks the firm. "It's a battle every day in the pizza sector," he says. "It literally is hand-to-hand combat on running sales promotions, getting your franchisees to buy into promotions, getting your team pumped up to put out that next promotion. In a tough business like that, everybody needs to be on the same page. And David's always done that by building team."

Not that Brandon teams haven't faced setbacks.

Domino's recently engineered a multimillion-dollar overhaul of the company's signature pizza after being hit with customer complaints. In a TV ad heralding the changes, one said the old version tasted "like cardboard."

Brandon and Patrick Doyle, his Domino's successor, teamed with other company employees in a charm offensive by bringing the new pizza to Wall Street analysts for a January lunch.

Years before the athletic director's job opened up, Brandon strengthened his already extensive college roots through a similar, philanthropic version of team-building. His self-funded charitable foundation has given at least $64,000 to prostate cancer programs at the university medical center, its most recent tax records show. The gifts came after the University of Michigan's Dr. James Montie successfully treated Brandon for the disease seven years ago.

In 2006, David and Jan Brandon gave the university $4 million, with half going to build a neonatal intensive care center. The unit will be named for the couple's twins, Nick and Chris. University of Michigan doctors saved them from a rare, life-threatening blood disorder when they were born in 1980.

Additionally, Brandon got a prior taste of academic politics in 2006, when he cast his Board of Regents vote for a controversial plan to expand the Michigan University Stadium — The Big House — by adding enclosed suites and premium seats. He'll be in his new job when the more expensive seats, which the university says are more than 70% sold or reserved, are unveiled this fall.

Jim Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, says Brandon's extensive university roots and decades of business experience make him as well-prepared for the job as anyone without athletic coaching experience could be. Even so, he describes the job as a challenge, even for a veteran executive. "You've got no shareholders, but a lot of stakeholders," says Delany, referring to players, coaches, university officials, alumni and others in the University of Michigan's large and passionate family. "Everyone's got an opinion. No matter how many resources you have, there's never enough."

Brandon's skills will be immediately tested by a simmering athletic controversy.

Simultaneously, some Michigan fans are grumbling about head football coach Rich Rodriguez, who's led the Wolverines to back-to-back losing seasons after bolting the top football job at West Virginia University.

The messy departure made Rodriguez a pariah among many West Virginia fans, and forced him and Michigan to combine on a $4 million buyout for breaking his contract. "If Rodriguez had had winning teams here for two years, a lot of this would have subsided. But, of course, he hasn't. So this will be a key year coming up," says Bill Ballenger, editor of the Inside Michigan Politics newsletter and website.

Brandon, who when his hiring was approved last month told reporters he'd "be proud to play for Rich Rodriguez," isn't disclosing specific plans for his new job.

Asked if he would have handled Rodriguez's hiring differently, Brandon says he won't "play Monday morning quarterback" on past decisions because "it's not productive, and it's divisive."

"What I will tell you is one of my most important responsibilities is to try to pull the University of Michigan family back together to the extent that there's any scar tissue or divisiveness that's built up over any issue," he says.

Regarding the NCAA investigation, he says, "It's out there, and I'll have to deal with it" when it's completed. "And I will."

As for the athletic department itself, Brandon says, "I don't go in with a fire truck and a siren going because there's a fire burning. It's in good shape."

Instead, he says he'll call a variation of similar plays he quarterbacked at Domino's and other stops in his corporate career: Meet your teammates. Assess their strengths. Set mutually agreed-upon goals. And plan a strategy for achieving success.

"There's probably part in everyone that wants to get to a point in their career where they can just do something they're passionate about and really love. And they do it because they want to do it, as opposed to they have to do it because of money or other circumstances," says Brandon, smiling as he describes how his life has come full circle.

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